Toon Talks Podcast with Eric Goldberg

To anyone who has met Eric, I’m sure you’ll agree that he embodies everything we love about the characters and craft of animation – he really is a ‘living cartoon character’! What a wonderful honour and pleasure to have him on the show!!
In the mid-1970s Eric broke into the industry working on Raggedy Ann and Andy at the Richard Williams studio where he quickly raised through the ranks from Assistant to Director! For a time in the 80’s Eric ran his own studio, Pizazz Pictures before returning to the States to work at Walt Disney’s as a lead animator on the Genie in Aladdin and later co director for Pocahontas, and the lead animator on Phil in Hercules. While at Disney’s Eric began his own short which was set to the George Gershwin’s Rhapsody in Blue. His short later became part of Disney’s Fantasia 2000 after he was allowed to use Disney’s staff which were on down time from The Emperor’s New Groove, to help complete it. He was also director for Fantasia 2000’s “The Carnival of the Animals” segment.
Eric also developed Maurice Sendak’s Where The Wild Things Are as a CG animated feature film and was an animation director on Warner Bros.’ Looney Tunes: Back in Action, as well as providing the voices for Speedy Gonzales, Tweety, and Marvin the Martian.
Eric also directed a short cartoon for a Buddhist cultural centre in Hong Kong, A Monkey’s Tale. A fun lesson about greed. He animated the title sequence of Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer’s 2006 remake of The Pink Panther, with Bob Kurtz of Kurtz and Friends. Later returning to Disney, where he directed four minutes of animation for the Epcot attraction Gran Fiesta Tour Starring The Three Caballeros and contributed to animated short How to Hook Up Your Home Theater. He was the supervising animator for Louis, the Alligator in The Princess and the Frog and Rabbit in Winnie the Pooh and head of animation on Get A Horse!

But all this, is still just a drop in the sea of contribution Eric has added to our industry.